But the YouTube experience on a little 5.5-inch screen isn’t always optimal. What if you want to listen to audio in the background? Or watch videos while doing other things on your phone? Read on for the best tips and tricks for the YouTube Android app.

1. Double Tap Gesture

The new YouTube app has a really useful double tap gesture. Tap twice on the left side of the screen to jump back 10 seconds (and on the right side to jump forward by 10 seconds).

This gesture is much better and faster than tapping the screen and then manually moving the seek bar. This becomes especially tiresome if you’re watching a long video.

And here’s a pro YouTube tip. You can even adjust the length. By default, it’s 10 seconds, but you can increase it all the way up to 60 seconds! From the YouTube app, tap on your profile picture and select Settings. From here, go to General and select Double-tap to seek.

2. Disable Autoplay

Autoplay is a great feature. Especially when it’s the end of the day and all you want to do is watch YouTube videos, one after the other. But it’s also a huge time suck.

When you’re viewing a video, you’ll find the Autoplay toggle right next to the Up next queue.

3. Clear and Pause Search History

If your Android phone frequently ends up with your friends or family member, you might want to consider clearing and pausing both the watch history and the search history. This way, there’s no log of what you’ve watched, and there’s no chance of related content showing up in the recommended list when someone else is watching from your device.

Go to Settings > History & Privacy and turn on Pause watch History and Pause search History features. From the top, you can clear current watch history and search history as well.

4. Swipe Up for Related Videos

When you’re watching a video and you’re just not that into it, you don’t need to go all the way back to the app’s home screen to find another video to watch. Just swipe up and you’ll get a horizontally scrolling list of recommended videos. Tap on one and the video will start playing.

6. Make Watch Later Actually Useful

Watch Later has always been one of those classic Google features where its potential was never realized.

Now, Google is slowly starting to make it more useful. You’ll actually see some Watch Later videos show up in your feed from time to time, and you’ll get notifications about Watch Later videos as well.

However, the most frustrating thing about the Watch Later feature is its default sorting method. When you go to Library > Watch Later, you’ll find that the playlist is sorted chronologically. To find the newest video, you’ll have to scroll to the bottom of the list. How archaic is that! Thankfully, you can now flip this. From the Watch Later section, tap on the Sort button and switch to Date added (newest).

To add videos to your Watch Later list, tap on the Add to Playlists icon and select Watch Later.

7. Share Videos With Friends

YouTube now comes with a chat feature. Oddly enough, though, it doesn’t integrate with your Google+ friends. Once you’ve invited a friend, you’ll be able to chat with them and share videos right on YouTube.

When you’re watching a video, tap on the Share button. From the top, swipe between the avatars to find the contact you’re looking for. Tap on their avatar and send it off.

Press the Home button when viewing a YouTube video, and the video will shrink into a floating box. You can move it around on the screen.

If you want to turn this feature off, open the Settings app on your Android phone and go to Apps & notifications > Advanced > Special access > Picture-in-picture. From here, find YouTube and toggle off Allow picture-in-picture.

9. Picture in Picture for Everyone Else

In case you’re not running Android Oreo and can’t access YouTube Red (which, at this point, is most of the world), don’t worry. Float Tube is a third party app that will give you the same functionality (although not the same experience).

Open the app and start searching for the video you want. Tap on a video to see the details page, and then tap on the Popup button. The video will start playing in the floating window.

Press the Home button, and the video will stay on top of everything. Tap on the video for play/pause controls and for the option to disable the popup mode.

Download: Float Tube [No Longer Available]

10. Download Videos and Listen in Background

And now for one of the most highly requested YouTube tricks: downloading a video. Video downloads and background audio are features exclusive to YouTube Red. The only alternative is to download an app that’s not in the Play Store.

NewPipe is a privacy-focused open-source YouTube player that has an offline feature, background audio feature, and a floating player. If you want periodic updates to the app, it’s best to download the app from F-Droid’s App Store itself.

Start by searching for a video. Once you select the video from the list, you’ll find the Download button at the top and the Background button below the description. Tap on the Background button, and the audio playback of the video will begin instantly. You can now lock your phone and continue listening to the audio in the background.

Tap on the Download button, and you’ll get an option to download the video or the audio. You can select the video resolution as well.

Extra: Noteworthy Settings

Limit Mobile Data: From YouTube Settings, go to General and enable the Limit mobile data usage option. This will help you reduce your cellular data usage.

Change the Region: If you don’t like the trending section in your country, or you want to watch videos that are not available in your country, you can switch your region from Settings > General > Content Location.

I find it sad that so many people make decisions based on one example, or one person's theory. In real life, I've used CCleaner as maintenance on multiple computers, multiple OSes, over a decade now. I typically run the cleanup function and then run a registry cleanup monthly, if not weekly. I don't have slow boot times (at least compared to windows normal. My mac has consistently outperformed any windows machine). I've never had windows crash on me after a registry clean. In fact I don't remember the last time I've had windows 'crash' on me. It used to on Win95. :p

And I also don't run antivirus. at all. I gave it up about 5 years ago. Every antivirus out there I tried slowed my computer to a snail's pace. I do let windows do its security thing that's built in now. If anyone wants to run antivirus, the last one I recommended was AVG free version. But I don't need it. I've had one computer infected in my life even though I very often visit questionable sites, download various executables, and open any email sent to me. My experience from the dozens of peoples computers that I've fixed is that the antivirus was the problem they had. I would get rid of it, use CCleaner to clean the caches and temp folders, clean the registry, and then hand it back.
I've worked in IT. I've fixed hundreds of computers that have had real viruses. But the number one issue with computers is the user. Most users install anything that asks. That's the problem.
It's like letting a hick gas station put motor oil in your car gas tank. It's your fault for saying yes.
DON'T USE REMOTE LOG IN COMPUTER TECHS! Take your computer to someone and shake their hand after you pay them what they deserve cause it takes hours to fix your computer after you install every addon and taskbar imaginable.
Thank you for reading my rant. :)

Khamosh Pathak is a freelance technology writer and User Experience Designer. When he's not helping people make the best of their current technology, he's helping clients design better apps and websites. In his free time, you'll find him watching comedy specials on Netflix and trying once again, to get through a long book. He is @pixeldetective on Twitter.